Truths about the police and gun control

Mike McDaniel[4] is a former police officer who writes at PJ Media to burst some misconceptions and point out some uncomfortable truths to readers about the realities of policing and and why you should have little faith in gun control. As always, read the whole thing[5], but there is one point I want to especially emphasize:

Time Is Not On The Side Of The Good Guys

Response times for emergencies vary enormously from place to place. In some rural or semi-rural areas, emergency response is measured in hours. Even in towns or cities, a five-minute response — from the moment an officer receives the radio call until he arrives in a school parking lot — would be amazingly fast.

Consider, however, that a radio call likely would not have been made until someone at the school realized what was happening and made a call, a call that will take precious seconds — even minutes — to make and to be understood. By the time a radio signal flashes out, a shooter could easily have been shooting for five minutes or more.

And even when that first officer arrives in the parking lot, he will likely not have clear directions. Few police officers have so much as been inside every school in their jurisdiction; fewer know them well. Even if that first officer can hear continuing gunfire, unless by chance he happens to enter the school near the shooter it will take additional minutes to find and stop the shooter. Unless the shooter stops him first.

Every minute is an eternity in a school attack. Every minute costs lives. All competent police officers know this; it’s one of their greatest frustrations. They know that in virtually every imaginable scenario, the real issue is how many will die before they are in a position to do anything.

They also know that if the modern history of school shootings is any guide, the shooter will virtually always have killed himself long before they arrive.

In virtually every American school shooting, the police have had no role in stopping the shooter.

As a friend once told me, “When every second counts, help via 911 is minutes away.”

And anyone who believes any different, who puts their faith in restrictive gun laws and “gun-free zones[6],” is just a deluded fool.